Photography

It's Soccer Night!

Soccer night is always fun. Micah has some skills - and by skills I mean he knows he's to kick the ball - but he lacks an entire knowledge of rules and other technicalities. Worse, he has no intention of learning. At Special Olympics golf, someone had the nerve to actually try to help him improve his swing. He simply picked up his ball and moved to another tee. He'll have none of that learning, thankyouverymuch.

To pass the time while waiting for Micah's time on the field, the boys got the soccer ball out of the van and scrimmaged each other. Behold, a rare moment of togetherness, captured on digital media forever. (Or at least as "together" as it's going to get.)

Tonight on the soccer field, Micah's job was to kick the ball into the left goal. In every other game he's played, it was the right goal that made him a winner. In the VIP program, they do not change goals at the half-game. It gets too confusing for the kids. And now we see why. Micah was confused. He nearly scored a goal for the opposing team before he was redirected (a few times) and headed left instead of right. (Scoring for the other team was an honor reserved for another of his teammates. We all cheered her anyway. She scored!)

Micah played his heart out, dribbling and walking to the net time after time. Don't let that above kick fool you. While he has a good foot on him, he refuses to do more than give the ball a gentle love tap during an actual game. I think he's afraid of letting it stray too far from his control. But he scored a few times and was quite proud of himself. We were proud as well.

And then the half whistle blew, and Micah grabbed his drink bottle and sat down on his blanket on the sideline. While the coaches consulted about whom to play where, Micah debated on whether or not to play the second half of the game. He chose not to. The coach, his personally assigned buddy, his brothers, nor his parents could convince him to finish what he started. We all decided that the game must go on without him, because while he has some athletic skills, he lacks compliancy.

It was some time after the game was resumed that he realized the meaning of commitment and decided to go rejoin the fun. But it was all his own decision, of course, because nobody can tell that kid what to do and get away with it. And that right there is why he's on the VIP team. Well, that, and the fact that he has no regard for rules. And that he gets confused by goal changes. And the fact that he won't just kick the ball as hard as he can....